We’re digging RPGs

Some reward system musings

The greatest roadblock for me right now, by far, is the reward system. There’s a lot of other things I need to define, like cobwebs, echoes, etc, but that’s just a matter of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard as it were). The rewards system really has me stumped.

I may have come up with something. It’s not fully developed but I figured I’d take it to you guys to see if there was anything to it before I started to really define it. What I’m thinking is that each player is given a number of tokens at the beginning of game. By the end of game, they need to hand off those tokens to other players at the table based on roleplaying, introducing new plot elements they think are cool, etc.

At any point, players can spend tokens they received to raise their Survival and/or Lucidity, similar to how I had it before. When they max out their Survival or Lucidity (or maybe it’ll have to be both) they gain a Hope die-step (again, just like before).

Here’s where things change up. Your hope directly corresponds to how many echoes you have and how powerful they can are. For example, If you have five hope, you can have five kinda punky echoes or one really bad-ass one. I’ll need to come up with some sample powers you can get from echoes, but players will be free to make up their own too.

I’d expressed before that I wasn’t happy with players having to spend experience to recover survival (heal), but that’s not as much of an issue for me anymore. What I decided was that people will be able to heal back up to their base stat in Survival or Lucidity either by resting or spending time in a Forgotten hospital/holy place. They can’t go above their base number except by spending tokens on it, but one of the abilities echoes will be able to give is adding to your base stat.

I also had this kinda weird idea (it was actually me and my friend John) about betting on dice rolls similar to craps, which is what the system is loosely based on. Players at the table can take tokens they received and bet them on another player winning a die roll, only when the despair die is higher. By betting, they add a +1 modifier to the players roll. If the dice roller wins, the player who bet gets their token back plus another one. If the roller loses, everyone who bet loses their tokens, and they share some of the consequences of the character who lost the challenge. the in game explanation is that Gatherings all have a kind of connection through fate or the nothing. They all have some common element in their past which is why the Nothing brings them together. Because of this connection, they can lend their hope to help others in their gathering.

I’m well aware that this betting system isn’t going to work as written. The odds are too much in favor of people always winning, but it’s an idea sprout I thought might pan out to be pretty interesting.

I thought about letting people bet on despair, but that brings in a competitive edge to the Gatherings which is kind of contrary to what they’re about. Gatherings form to help eachother out. giving penalties by betting does the same thing

Meet the Miners

We are fledgling game designers, each working on a single new design in public (but really working on it in this group… but really working on it in public). The complete current drafts (or as complete as they stand) are in the Projects page. We also tell you what we’re about and how we do things around here on the Mission Statement page.

Master Mines Reservists
These are Master Mines members who have moved into the Publishing phase and are busy with that work or who are taking a break from designing or have bowed out for various reasons. However, these Reserve Miners remain close friends of the group. Reservists can be called in at any time to fight in case of an interstellar invasion by receiving the call: “Master Miners Mobilize!”